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Drive Rails
Graviton Drive-Rails Drive-Rails act on space-time ahead of the ship to create a heavily curved dip, allowing the ship to “fall” into the depression the rails create when energized. Made from thin wafters of Neutron Star Stuff mined using Spotlight Arrays and Relativistic Canons, the extreme density of Drive-Rails is unmatched by virtually any other substance in the universe. Atom thin layers of Neutron material are laid down between slabs of diamond and liquid sapphire, forming large bars with a matte black finish so light absorbent they appear like shadows in broad daylight. The inner edges and tops are opposed to one another, forcing the stream of gravitons to express outwards and away from the ship. Drive-Rails run along trenches on the skirt of every starship, always exposed to space. The light passing by their intense gravitational warpage appears blue-shifted and distorted. Drive-Rails can accelerate a ship anywhere between 1%C(3000km/s) and 30%Chttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light(90,000km/s) taking anywhere between a few minutes to a few days to reach, depending on the length of the Rails and their Engine Capacitors, and the size of the ship. Drive-Rails also act as "offensive" weapons in that their fields of affect, which drop off 4πR2, can extend anywhere between the average 10,000km for a 10m Drive-Rail, and 100,000km for 100m Rails. Allied ships can enter a formation at 1/2 the distance of their affect fields and create larger disruptions, adding 50% to their range per ship in the formation. Ships caught inside the Affect Field are incapable of engaging their Drive-Rails at full acceleration, or else their fully engaged rails will shook uncontrollably and bend towards one another at extreme velocities before slamming together, destroying the ship. Vessels use this to their advantage by intercepting their prey, dropping the ship back to their original velocity before they entered their Acceleration Coma, which they can only escape from by leaving the field or destroying their enemies. Engineering Concerns The extraordinary rate of acceleration they provide is enough to make the far denser Drive-Rails cut the ship like a hot knife through butter, as the moment of impulse is enough to liquefy metal, let alone the human occupants being crushed against the pressure. An additional system called a Haylaeron Ring is required to prevent this. The Haylaeron Ring is responsible for maintaining the ship’s Acceleration Coma, where every particle of the ship’s mass is tied together into a single instanced point, effectively turning the entire ship into one large atom. The Drive-Rails then apply their effects to this hyper-dense particle and carry it along with them. Computers, weapons, and crew are essentially frozen in time as the ship makes its jump to fractions of light-speed. The Coma lifts after the the destination is within reach and frees the vessel from the coma. Because lengths of several tens of metres are required to achieve acceptable rates of acceleration, and the Haylaeron Ring Room requires a Nuclear Furnace, Batteries, and Capacitors of substantial size. No small ships (those under 45Metres) are capable of travelling this way. Missiles and Drones, which must be unmanned thanks to the incredible pressure of their acceleration, can only afford a few significant bursts of speed before they run out of electron fuel, and a majority of their volume is taken up by the Drive-Rail and extremely dense material that fills their structure. The same would be true of a fighter craft, which after the Furnace, batteries, and capacitors are added would be too large to be a practical application fighter, and too slow to compete with the far larger ships they would be meant to intercept and fight. Even the smallest class of Scout Ships are larger than a three story house to accommodate this heavy equipment. Dangers Two excited Drive-Rails should never be allowed to meet. They will rapidly merge together into a spherical mass, which at that point renders them unrecoverable. They will begin collapsing into a micosingularity over several microseconds, then rapidly evaporate in a burst of intense radiation. This is also a key component in making Micro-singularity Bombs, illegal under Anactora Law. At Idle a set of 100m Rails are inert, producing standing gravity around the ship that amounts to a pleasant 1.82/ms2. However, when enervated, they shoot up to 1000/ms2. If a person were to be standing just a kilometre ahead of the ship they would fall towards the rails at hyper-sonic speeds, their molecules being stretched and torn as they accelerate around the curve before being ripped into a speghettified strand and thrown out of orbit of the ship. Not intended for atmospheric travel, Drive-Rails are generally kept safely in high orbit out of reach of a planet's gravity. When introduced into a gas environment the rails rip atoms apart in a brightly glowing tornado of plasma as material orbits the source of this powerful and deep curve in space-time. If a Drive-Rail were to be introduced to a planet their extreme mass would accelerate towards the surface through the atmosphere at extreme speeds, enough to produce a shock front so intense Gamma-Rays would be emitted. It would impact the surface with enough kinetic energy to register in the trillions of megatons, then rapidly plunge into the planet's core where they will remain for all time. Even worse than the initial impact, the intense tidal rip-field around the rails in the core would constantly produce Nuclear Fusion and intense radiation as matter pushes in on the Rails. This would contribute significant levels of increasing heat, and over geological time periods gradually churn the rocky layers above into molten magma, constantly disturbed by great plumes of lithium and helium. This would lead to global tectonic instability and contribute to a very hostile environment millennia after the impact's apocalyptic effects had passed. Unfortunately this has precedence during the War of Morning Grace, as it is the crime Khazak Shel committed that eradicated life on Pix'Ban as he sent his Battlecruiser into the planet at 30%C. Experiments If given enough time and energy, Drive rails can accelerate to 99% light speed, but it would require more energy than there is in the known universe to maintain that exponential rate of increase. Because Hydrogen Storage is finite in a ship's cargo hold, and a Nuclear Forge even at XXL size is not powerful enough to output that level of energy (let alone vent the heat,) ship have a max limit at which they can travel outside of Slipstream. The quickest accelerating experimental ship had Drive-Rails 10,000 meters long, connected to 4 XL Furnaces, connected to 8 XL Engine Capacitors, and had a ∆V of 100,000m/sec2, maintained for 4.2 seconds, and maxed out at 240,000km/sec (80%C.) They burned through 200 million units of H1 in just under 1.8 seconds and produced temperatures in excess of 130,000,000 Kelvin, vaporizing half the ship into plasma despite the Haylaeron Ring maxing out. The vessel proceeded to arc out of the Vikos Star System and vanish from sensors. The still glowing mass is expected to reach Basset in 3.8 years, where it will impact the sun and attempt to inject a Stellar Anchor into the corona for future Slipstream routes into the system. Stats Acceleration & Motion 10 Metres of Drive Rail – ∆V 100m/sec2 * 10 Units of E, and generates 20 Heat ** ∆V 200m/sec2 *** 100 Units of E, and generates 400 Heat **** ETC 100 Meters of Drive Rail – ∆V 1000m/sec2 * 1000 Units of E, and generates 2000 Heat ** ∆V 2000m/sec2 *** 1000000 Units of E, and generates 4000000 Heat **** ETC Smaller engines have more versatility and economy, but larger engines accelerate faster and at a starting rate much less expensive than taxing their shorter versions. Interdiction 10 Meters Drive Rail accounts for roughly 10,000km of space. In that sphere. Upgrades Engine Capacitor Density – 25% More Acceleration Cost: 15 E 30 Heat/10,000km - 1 Capacitor Slot Pulse Modulator – Adds 10% Dodge Chance to incoming ordinance (4 Max) Cost: 25 E - 100Heat - 1 Capacitor Slot